Thursday, September 01, 2011

What's Our President Thinking About Today?

What's on Barack Obama's mind today? I would, of course, place my bets on the same things you would: golf, basketball, fundraising, vacations, White House parties, photo ops, blaming George W. Bush for stuff, etc.

But here are a few other things that might crop up.

1) Uncle Omar?

Obama Onyango, Barack Obama's uncle who was arrested last week for DUI, has been illegally living in the U.S. since the 1960s. But he's been living in a pretty nice home in a suburb of Boston, working in a liquor store, and hosting popular backyard barbecues. And you think the American people are going to believe that the President didn't know he was there? Right. And so now you know why the press refuses to touch this story.

2) Solyndra?
President Obama made a high-profile visit in May 2010 to Solyndra Inc., a solar-panel manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif. The company received $535 million in loans from the Energy Department and was a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus effort. “Companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future,” Mr. Obama chirped. On Wednesday, Solyndra closed its corporate headquarters, announced that it’s filing for bankruptcy and laying off 1,100 workers... (Washington Times editorial)

3) Bad-mouthing Congress after being schooled by John Boehner?

Within minutes of agreeing with congressional leaders Wednesday night on an address to a joint session next week, President Obama flashed out an email to millions of supporters criticizing the chambers, their members and vowing to pressure them to enact his as yet unspecified job creation ideas.

"It's been a long time since Congress was focused on what the American peoplObama during his address to the American Legion 8-30-11e need them to be focused on," the Democrat charged in an email with the subject line: "Frustrated."

It's not exactly clear how long "a long time" Obama was thinking of. But until midterm voters produced a historic House turnover to Republicans last November, Obama's Democratic Party controlled both houses with substantial majorities and gave him vast spending, reform and healthcare programs...(Andrew Malcolm, LA Times)

4) The ExxonMobil lawsuit?

ExxonMobil, the world’s largest energy company, filed a lawsuit against the federal government for canceling an oil-drilling lease in the Gulf of Mexico that held “billions of barrels of oil,” according to the company.

In the suit, filed Aug. 12 in federal court in Louisiana against Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar and related parties, Exxon alleges that the Interior Department made an “arbitrary, capricious” decision in canceling the deepwater leases, arguing that the government’s action “deprives ExxonMobil of property without due process of law.” (Matt Cover, CNS News)

5) Unemployment figures?

The unemployment level appears flat only because the workforce is shrinking as millions of able Americans give up hope of a real career style job. For months (here, here, here and here) I have shown how the stable U3 unemployment number is a sad fiction, that when you adjust for where the workforce should be right now based on population and historic trends, the unemployment is in the 10.5+% range. (A.J. Strata)

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